Monday 11:00 am
The drumming sound
started to get louder. Then she heard the horse hoof beats rising from a dull throb
to a sharp, piercing sound, and soon it synchronized with the drum beats…
Nikitha started to look around in fear, she wasn’t alone on the escalator.
Her heartbeat grew
faster, she wasn’t prepared to hear about another tragedy… was this real? Was
another strange coincidence about to unravel? She was perspiring, as another
train pulled into the V Metro station and she watched in horror for something
to unfold… few passengers got out and quite a few got in, and the train chugged
off… she felt relieved… She then walked out of the station and there… it
happened!
The screeching sound
of a bus braking suddenly. She closed her eyes, and in a fraction of a second-
it had happened. A girl was lying in a pool of blood, as a speeding car just
drove past the girl. People rushed to the scene of the accident, trying to help
the victim. But she was dead. Nikitha knew, or rather expected it!
This was the third
incident since morning. Exactly 3 hours after the first one.
Earlier in the day:
8:00 am
Nikitha was a fitness
freak and usually jogged two kms to the gym and back. An hour of workout at the
gym was her daily routine. It was almost a week since she had skipped her
routine of six months. She was recovering from a concussion she had after being
hit on the head during a basketball game. She woke up early that Monday morning
and looked forward to her day at college.
The workout had her tired and she sat by the roadside bench, to catch a breath,
half a kilometre from her house. Suddenly, she started hearing loud noises.
There was no one around on the street. But the sound of drumbeats coupled with
horse hoof beats got louder and she closed her ears and tried to look in the
direction of the sound. It seemed to be coming from the
road parallel to the one she was in. She got up and ran to the next
lane. Slowly, the sounds started receding and then there was commotion near the
park. As she reached the source of the sounds, she saw a big group crowding
around something. The noise had now stopped. She reached into the crowd and saw
a girl in her teens, lying in a pool of blood. It seemed like murder. Not something
new in the crime-infested downtown of the metropolis city.
But the sounds were
unusual, she had never heard anything of the kind. Sounds that were totally
unusual to be heard in a city, well was it really what she heard? As the police
cars pulled in and the ambulance arrived, she went her way.
A half hour later,
reaching home, Nikitha showered and had her breakfast and got ready to leave
for college. The unusual sounds were still fresh in her memory. Trying to
forget the episode, she got into the morning rush and reached the nearby W
Metro station to board the train to her College.
Monday 9:00 am
The morning traffic on
the road under the elevated metro station was quite heavy. The buses, cars,
cabs, two and three-wheelers were all jostling for space. It was sheer
cacophony. The high decibel sounds were broken by the familiar rhythmic
drumbeats and hoof beats. Nikitha became conscious of the sound. She looked
around and tried to find the source. There were all kinds of vehicles around,
but none that matched the ones she heard. Just as she reached the foot of the
escalator to board it taking her to the concourse, she heard vehicles
screeching to a halt on the road. There were loud screams and Nikitha’s
curiosity got the better of her as she rushed to the scene of commotion. A
chill ran down her spine. Another young girl was found killed. It seemed to be
a gunshot, one that no one heard. No one saw how it happened or who was behind
it. Nikitha began to suspect that the sounds she heard were related to the
killings.
Shocked with the
developments since morning she waited for the police to arrive and see if she
could get some connection. The place was cordoned off by the cops and she had
little or no chance to interact with them. The police were questioning for
possible witnesses. Nikitha didn’t know if she could help. She had not seen
anything, and her only hunch was not going to help.
Assumptions were not
what the investigators wanted, for there were many who speculated.
Left with no option
Nikitha decided to take the next available train to her college. She was
dumbstruck, numbed by the two killings. Was there any connection? Could she
approach the police and tell them about the sounds? Why didn’t anyone else talk
about the strange sounds? She had a lot of questions. Ones that she had no
answers to, and neither did she think she could find any for them.
Already late to
college, she picked up coffee at the station and sat sipping it. One train
passed by, and then two. She finally got up and boarded the third one. Looking
out of the window, as the train chugged along, the young girls lying in a pool
of blood started flashing in front of her eyes. She tried hard to deflect her
thoughts. 45 minutes later she reached her destination. Slowly, lost in
thought, she got off the train and walked towards the escalator going down. It
was almost 11 am.
Back, outside the V
Metro Station
The loud sirens of the
approaching ambulance and police cars drowned the already fading strange noises
in her head. Nikitha decided to talk to the cops and see if there could be a
connection. The Investigators checked out all possible eyewitnesses and questioned
the people about what they saw. None seemed to have
noticed anything unusual. Nikitha introduced herself to Sam, who looked
like a man with authority. He was the chief of the police and Nikitha told him she wanted
to speak to them.
He took her to the
stationed police vehicle where she narrated her experiences of the day. The
first killing near the park, the W Metro Station and now outside the V Metro
station.
Sam called in a dozen
other possible witnesses, passers-by at the scene of the murder. No one had
heard any unusual sounds as described by Nikitha. While the body of the third
murder victim was shifted for post-mortem, Sam took Nikitha to the Police
headquarters for further questioning. More witnesses from the earlier incidents
of the day were brought in and were all questioned about the sounds described
by her. None had heard it. The Police did a check on the two earlier incidents
and Nikitha’s presence at the places. The joggers at the park had seen her and
the CCTV footage at the W metro station confirmed her presence.
She was then sent for
a medical examination, and the doctors ratified that she was perfectly in her
senses and was not hallucinating. Nikitha promised to cooperate in the
investigation as she was eager to get to the bottom of the strange noises in
her head.
She finally reached
her college at 1:00 pm and after a disinterested lunch, went to the library to
study up the phenomenon of her unusual hearing. Her research threw up many
possibilities explained by science. She could have a hearing impairment of
sorts, something she could read about but needed expert advice to understand
better.
Monday 3:00 pm
Nikitha decided to
speak to Sam about her research and called the senior cop on his mobile. Sam
was empathetic to her and assured to join her at the super specialty hospital
in half hour. Meanwhile, unknown to her, two cops were assigned to follow her
at a distance.
Just as she stepped
out of the cab in front of the beach facing hospital, the sounds in her head
started to ring. The hoof beats were familiar now, so were the accompanying
drum beats. They slowly grew louder… she looked around and saw a few
two-wheelers and a bus on the road. There was not much traffic, and she started
sweating, waiting for another incident. The sounds receded and then she closed
her ears and eyes and sat on the pavement.
The two tailing cops
came to her to check if she was alright.
Nikitha told them
about the recurrence of the sounds and how it peaked and receded fast.
The area was cordoned
off soon and all CCTV camera footage of the movement of vehicles and people was
secured.
Over the next hour,
the investigators were clueless about the happenings at the hospital gate
junction. After consulting the audiologists at the hospital, she took her
reports and joined Sam and his team in search of the elusive sound source. None
of the vehicles seemed to leave any trail, well not until Nikitha pointed to a
huge HD 48 - 1200 cc motorcycle, which she seemed to have seen earlier in the
day near the W Metro.
Soon the footage of
the morning traffic under the Metro was being scanned. The bike was unmissable
– The rider wearing a black jacket and black helmet with dark glass visor. But
that could just be a coincidence and the motorbike was known for its heavy-duty
thump, heard to all and sundry half a km away too. Big deal if it had been
spotted at two scenes of crime?
The investigators were
leaving no stone unturned, they soon got the details of the bike and tracked it
down to the northern highway. The rider was a calm character and without much
ado followed the instructions of the cops and submitted himself and the bike
for scrutiny.
Later at the police
headquarters: Ron, the biker and his bike were put to test. Nikitha could
hardly make out any special noises as the thumping of the bike reverberated in
the compound. The biker was let go after severe interrogation on the murders
lead to no evidence of his involvement whatsoever.
Monday 8:00 pm
It was a long and
tiring day, both physically and mentally. An apologetic Nikitha wanted to go
home and rest, Sam offered to drop her home in the police vehicle. The
well-mannered Ron too offered to drop her home, and the cops felt it was safe
to let him take her home.
Ron dropped her off at
the gate and she thanked and waved him goodbye. The biker waited for her to get
into her house and close the door behind her. Then he engaged the gear of the
bike, revved it a bit, and slowly held the clutch to kill the thumping noise
from the silencer.
The bike stayed in
motion even though it had gone totally silent... but for the...
Meanwhile, Nikitha
pulled out the medical reports from her bag and it perplexed her. It read: Infrasonic
sounds exemplified to high decibels due to injury in the ear.
The next moment she
slumped to the floor, cupping her ears tight – the horse beats and the drum
beats were back and just growing louder and louder.
A single gunshot and... ...Silence!
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